


Pidge-bot

by AllAroundWinner



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Robots & Androids, Artificial Intelligence, Gen, Gratuitous use of italics, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I am a genius, Keith and Pidge share a moment no romo, Language is clean until it's not, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Secrets DO make friends, This Is Not A Work Of Art, it was 3am
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:00:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24296245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllAroundWinner/pseuds/AllAroundWinner
Summary: Mmhmm, yep, I am totally human.
Relationships: Keith & Pidge | Katie Holt, Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro
Comments: 30
Kudos: 53





	1. So Here's the Truth...

**Author's Note:**

> H'okay, folks, buckle yourselves in because the train is leaving, it's already off the rails, and I have no idea where we're going. Make sure your tray table is in the upright position because I will not be held responsible for anyone's smashed fingers.

Y'see, the truth is that Katie Holt really, honestly and truly, was 100%, Grade-A, bonafide human.

And then, well, then her brother and her father got shot into space and never returned. If your name is Katie Holt, this is a Thing That Does Not Fly. You start building an autonomous artificial intelligence that can continue the search for your family when you're busy getting thrown out of the Garrison for trespassing. It starts out as just a program, obviously, because robots with a human interface are super illegal, duh. But then, a lot of what you're doing these days is pretty solidly illegal so…is this this really so much worse?

Building a skeleton, well, that was more of a printing project, really, proof of concept type of stuff. And the muscular/neuro relay synapses that you printed on top of it was grant-approved research into integrated hardware structures…no one said you _couldn't_ print muscles. And giving it skin was honestly the humane thing to do. No one is really that jazzed to see a bare-bones carbon-fiber musculoskeletal structure just parading around in all of its see-through and strangely visceral glory. Well, except Katie. But Katie Holt is an outlier and should not be counted. She's biased, she's weird, and we've already established how illegal she is.

And then, well…then Katie Holt had a massively paralyzing injury and the Pidge-bot became a lot more necessary. Initially, she enrolls it into the Garrison as the spy she can no longer be, controlling it via VR uplink that laughs at the Garrison's security-net. But ever since that first dive Katie's been running a sub-routine that collects and catalogues every thought and decision she makes while connected, and the AI learns as it goes. Eventually she just…turns it loose from time to time and when she reconnects with it, it has all these stories and things to say and pretty soon Katie just starts treating it like a person--starts treating _her_ like a person.

And ever since Katie saw the redacted footage from Kerberos she's had a vision of the way things are going to be. They are going to blow up eventually and the fallout isn't going to stop in this atmosphere. The plan for Pidge just keeps getting bigger and bigger. She doesn't just become her own person, she _needs_ to be her own person if they're going to pull anything off.

They work together and build a radio that can receive trans-space communications frequencies. It would probably never have occurred to her to use the rotational frequencies of the stars themselves to amplify the signal if it wasn't for the other her. It's almost like Matt's home again and it makes them both miss their brother and their doomsday prep gets a little more desperate because Doomsday is coming. It looms over both of them like an unwelcome jerk-wad at the commissary. But Katie and Pidge are tough as nails and carbon steel. They can handle jerk-wads. 

Doomsday turns out to be Takashi fricken' Shirogane crash landing back on Earth, getting Pidge strung up with the world's scrawniest two idiots and its most huggable genius. 

This. This is the opportunity of a lifetime only Katie isn't in any state fit to go. She feels something over the VR link that's so foreign it takes a second to process. It's not that the feeling is unfamiliar, heck, she got it from anyone who looked down on her in her wheelchair. She just never thought she'd get from Pidge of all people: pity. So Katie does the only thing she can do. She cuts Pidge free--severs the VR link and mentally pushes her double into that Blue Lion with the rest of them. No arguments, no back tracing, no way can Pidge force comms and try to talk sense into her. This is what Katie _literally_ built her for, there's no way in _hell_ she's going to let Pidge pass up this chance out of a misplaced sense of guilt and survivor's remorse. She's going into space one way or another, even if Katie has to override her jetpack to do it.

Pidge is doing a good job just to keep up with shit at this point. She was so used to being the smartest thing in the room by _leagues_ back on earth (well, duh, aside from Katie. But Katie Holt was her creator and thus is an outlier and should also, again, not be counted. Just accept it by now, people). _Leagues_ I tell you. But at this point Kerberos is in the rearview and getting smaller by the second, a wormhole spontaneously opened in the middle of space, and Takashi Shirogane is _still,_ miraculously, alive and not popping out of existence. Pidge is using pretty much all of her massive amounts of processing power to take in everything so it takes her a second to notice the biggest change at all.

Even when she went solo at the Garrison, or to the store or to anywhere on Earth--even then she knew that Katie was close by. The internet was always in reach, her sister and creator always just a quick ping away. If she needed anything--an opinion, a distraction, an affirmation of her existence--Katie was there.

Well there's no internet in space. There's no network hovering at the edge of her consciousness. There's no Katie at the end of a line of code encouraging her to keep going. 

For the first time in her short, short life, even with the boys and the Lion and, ok, what? A princess? Yeah. Ok, even with all of that: Pidge is truly and honestly alone.


	2. The Next Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Look, dude, I get that we all deal with stress differently, OK? And maybe the way you deal with stress is working on this stuff, but you gotta stay healthy, OK?"

Picking up on the Castle network is hard, ok? Like, really hard. She knows it exists, can feel the faint cloud of something in the recirculated air, but her attempts to connect with it keep getting blocked. It's not based in any of the programming languages Pidge is familiar with, any of them, and she knows them all. The system uses crystals for Pete's sake which is somehow more efficient than fiber-optics and it probably has something to do with what Allura is calling "quintessence." "Quintessence" being a fancy Altean word for "life-force magic" and while Pidge knows a lot about atomic resonance, she's not sure how the Alteans managed to turn _life-energy_ into a network.

So she does what any sane and incredibly driven Holt/Gunderson human-AI hybrid would do: she claims a spot in the shuttle hanger, pulls out every piece of tech she managed to squirrel away, and starts working. She's got about 20 minutes tops before she and Shiro are supposed to go out and find this mystical Green Lion she's supposed to be "connected" to. Only how the heck is she supposed to connect with a Lion if she can't even connect her laptop to the local freakin' wifi? Normally 10,600-year-old spaceships would be an exciting challenge. It just so happens that there's a very real time-limit here and she caught her shoe-laces on step one.

Now, Pidge has done a fair amount of tweaking to her own programming, so it's very much a matter of personal pride that the Castle Network keeps slipping through her digital fingers. She should probably ask Coran, only he's currently busy prepping their shuttle and probably scary observant. He's the mechanic of a 10,600-year-old spaceship that is _way_ more advanced than anything she's ever encountered--the idea that he might pick up on something she doesn't even know she's giving away is enough for her to keep her mouth mulishly shut. 

It's honestly kind of a relief when Hunk shows up with a plate of food goo. She tells him that she already ate, of course, but if he's here then he can help her work on figuring it out the Altean network. Thank the stars she picked up on Katie's pack-rat tendencies or she'd never have brought this much gear to space on _accident._

He agrees pretty quickly and gets to work. Two sets of keys clacking in tandem is music to her ears and chicken soup to her silicon carbide soul. It's nice. Or at least it would be if _someone_ didn't keep glancing at her every 3.125 seconds. It's super distracting.

" _What_ , Hunk?"

He gets flustered. What, didn't think you'd get called out on it? Joke's on you, Bucko.

"Oh, nothing, it's nothing."

"Fine," she says, suspiciously, "Then let's focus on figuring this out."

Hunk hunches back over his computer.

For all of 5.18 seconds.

"It's just that--"

"Oh my _god_ , Hunk--"

"It's just that I haven't seen you eat and taking care of yourself is really important and you're really thin already. And I'm like, 98% sure you haven't slept in two days and it's starting to bug me out, man."

Her eyes narrow dangerously. "I told you I've already eaten."

"Yeah, no," he says, head shaking back and forth, "no way did you eat that food goo. Are you kidding? _I_ barely ate that food goo."

"I had a snack in my bag," she says and for some reason this makes him squint. Well too bad. "Can we refocus? Please?" Her words said please, her tone said 'leave me the heck alone,' only it implied something a bit stronger than 'heck.' 

For a second (like, on the nose one second) she thinks maybe she won and that Hunk will just drop it. And then, then his eyes get soulful and his tone gets soft. Damn.

"Look, dude, I get that we all deal with stress differently, OK? And maybe the way you deal with stress is working on this stuff, but you gotta stay healthy, OK?"

She grinds her teeth and glares at her screen and the irritation just keeps bubbling--because she's always healthy, she literally can't eat, and she doesn’t technically need to sleep. So screw him for caring because she can't tell him any of that.

"Pidge, dude, have you even napped?"

"No!" she snaps back, "I haven't. I don't have time to nap, I have to figure this out before Coran finishes prepping the shuttle. So if you're not going to help--"

"Everything OK in here?"

Fu--for the love of all things holy, just kill her now, cut the power. Corrupt her files and burn everything because now _Shiro's_ involved. Can she catch a break?

"It's fine. I'm just trying to connect to the castle network and Hunk is trying to lecture me on my eating habits."

"I’m just trying to help, Pidge--"

"Well you're not helping, you're wasting my time!"

"Hey, cut it out, both of you!" the silence after Shiro's interruption is red-cheeked and tense, but it is the silence he was looking for. "Listen, none of us are at our best right now. It's been a hectic few hours and the day's not over. We've just got to do the best we can with what we have. Hunk, Coran's almost finished prepping Pidge and my's shuttle, which means you need to meet up with Lance in the Blue Lion's hangar. The sooner we get all the Lions in one place, the better."

Hunk walks away with a chip on his shoulder and Pidge types away in futility under Shiro's uneasy watch and time slinks away into the stinky, stinky bog of Pidge's self-depreciation.

\---

The planet that holds the Green Lion is pretty dope, but Pidge has a hard time appreciating it. Of course Shiro takes notice. He does her the courtesy of not bringing it up, though, until they're floating down a gently rocking river. It's like a therapist's dream….right up until the giant sloth-man. But depending on the therapist, maybe he counts.

"So you wanna tell me what that was back there?" Apparently if Shiro is the therapist, the sloth-man counts.

She doesn't want to tell him, actually, but this has all the vocal inflection of a demand and seeing as he is the ranking officer in charge, she figures she kind of has to say something. It's not like he's Iverson or something and she actually does want to trust him. Katie never needed to pry--she just got it but Shiro's kind of the closest thing she has to family right now anyway. 

She's gonna talk to him, but her body language is going to scream discomfort while she does it. 

"I'm worried I won't be able to connect with my Lion. And I thought maybe I'd understand it a little better if I figured out the Castle's network."

"And you thought Hunk would help but then he started distracting you instead."

"Exactly!" Holy crow, he actually gets it! She whips around in excitement. "And then he wouldn't freaking leave me alone! Like, hello, just because I'm not constantly hungry doesn't mean there's something wrong with me!"

"But you're worried there might be."

If she had a heart it would be thumping. "What?"

"Something wrong with you. You're worried that you won't be able to connect with your Lion, that it might not accept you."

She honestly doesn't know how to answer that. It's too close. All of the possible ways she could answer are whirring around in her head and they all seem to project disaster. Thankfully, Shiro saves her from all of them.

"Listen," he starts, "Our commander on the Kerberos Mission is the smartest man I ever met and he always said, 'If you get too worried about what could go wrong, you might miss a chance to do something great.' You didn't pick the Lion, Pidge, the Lion picked you."

She can't help the way her eyes go wide and she stares at him in response. She can't help but think that Katie is the one who should be here, hearing her father's words of wisdom. But the canoe hits ground and if it's possible, Shiro's smile gets even softer. 

Yeah. Katie's not here. But helping Katie do what she's not able to is the summary of her entire life. She's not doing this _instead_ of Katie. She's doing it _for_ Katie.

"Go. Be great."


	3. Small Mercies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And then, _and then_ comes the worse exercise of all: thought sharing.

Pidge is pretty sure that, aside from the stroke of brilliance that inspired Katie to start working on her programming, the Green Lion is the best thing that's ever happened to her. They're connected. _Always._ And it's great. Sure, the Lion doesn't know _everything,_ apparently there was a lot of mystery surrounding their origins, but hey! Mission accomplished! Pidge is now locked-in to the Castle wi-fi! Green is pretty happy to be useful, even though she's performing the function of a glorified router (which, OK, is a little undignified but have you _seen_ Green's bandwidth? Truly insane).

It gives Pidge a distinct advantage in the 'bonding' exercise they have to do. Seeing through her Lion's eyes is a cinch and she manages it before the rest of the Paladins, but holds off on gloating until after Shiro manages it, too. Watching Lance and Keith hit the sand from her Lion's perspective was hilarious. Gosh, they're such dweebs.

But that's kind of where her successes end for the day. She and Shiro might be well connected with their Lions, but connecting with the other Paladins is a whole 'nother story. Allura and Coran's idea of "team building" is truly horrendous. Walking through the electrified maze is _terrifying_ and causes Pidge to really re-think how well her 'skin' insulates her circuits because she can _not_ afford to get fried in space. She's immensely thankful Shiro's her partner --and watching Lance getting his butt handed to him is kind of worth it.

And then, _and then_ comes the worst exercise of all: thought sharing.

 _Thought sharing??_ Holy crow, what is Coran thinking?? There are a m i l l i o n ways this can blow up in her face _without_ Hunk's absolute and complete disrespect for personal boundaries. Mind melding is just fine when you don't have someone actively sabotaging you--and the level of concentration it takes to keep Hunk out of her core memories while also forming Voltron is almost on par with hacking a black hat firewall. 

When Keith snaps at her for "thinking of your girlfriend," she snaps right back with an accusation at Hunk and it…unfortunately escalates. After all of his prodding the day before and his complete lack of respect for personal property, his testy jibe at her being 'open' is pretty much the last straw.

All things considered, she's doing a good job, OK? Her family is still missing, her only link to them sits in the cryo-infirmary, and Coran has them sitting in a circle singing kumbaya! Look, she gets that they're supposed to be a team. She gets that they have to be synced up to form Voltron--and she can totally do that and keep certain memories compartmentalized and it wouldn't be a problem if Hunk would just keep his mind to his _own. heckin'. self._

__She gets defensive. She gets called on it. Thankfully Shiro calls for a break but she's even more reluctant to let Hunk anywhere near her head._ _

__To be honest, Allura showing up to make them fight the gladiator is a relief and if Pidge fights a little more aggressively than she did with the target-bots earlier, well, it's because she's more determined than ever to prove that keeping her head to herself isn't going to get in the way of forming Voltron. She can protect her team and her privacy at the same time. They still end up losing, of course, but she manages to avoid getting electrocuted._ _

__The food fight is fun. Especially since it distracts everyone from the fact that none of it ends up in her mouth. And forming Voltron afterwards is…yeah. Forming Voltron is something else._ _

__After the boys finish reveling in their newfound camaraderie, Pidge sets up shop in Green's hangar and spends the night transferring data and updating her combat algorithms. It takes a hardwire connection so she asks Rover to act as a lookout. Hopefully no one's noticed she's not in bed or things could get awkward if they come looking. Wha--doesn't everybody have cables coming out their armpits? No?_ _

__In fact, Rover is surprisingly good company. The little tetrahedron is an AI itself and they can barely communicate, so Rover's attempts to help her learn fancy Galra tech-speak pretty much just devolves into the two of them trying to tell each other bad jokes. They fail horribly, but that's what makes it funny._ _

__It's a welcome distraction after the day's events. The ones that her thinking about the hazards of being a Paladin. Katie had done a great job building her body to be rugged, but there was only so much she could do with the materials available on Earth. It's starting to dawn on Pidge that, as resilient as her skin is, it can't grow back, and space is routinely filled with stronger stuff than what Katie could safely test for on earth A breech in her skin's insulation could open her whole system to getting scrambled._ _

__Which means she wants back-ups. At least three, and they've all got to be accessibly secure. Meaning, yeah, there's a copy saved under five layers of security on her laptop, but she won't be able to lug her laptop around in a space battle. Rover might have enough memory and would probably be willing, but she has to wait until she's _absolutely sure_ she has its permission. She'll have to stick with Altean resources for now. She resolves to talk to Coran in the morning about getting a better understanding of Altean tech, but the potential time it will take to set up another back-up leaves her antsy._ _

__Thankfully, a rumble interrupts her consciousness before she can get truly anxious. Green hums through their connection, and Pidge is suddenly aware of a clear space in the Lion's memory._ _

__"Green, you're a genius!"_ _

__And since the Green Lion is about as humble as Pidge, she preens at the compliment. Pidge is so overcome with affection for the verdant behemoth that it warrants a full-body hug. The Paladin only manages to wrap herself around one claw, but it's the thought that counts._ _

__It's no small relief to know that Green will keep her safe in more ways than one._ _

__\--_ _

__Things change very quickly after that. The refugees awaken, she and Shiro investigate Sendak's wreckage, and Voltron beats back a gigantic robot reminiscent of a flesh and blood beast Shiro fought in the gladiator arena. Yeah, that doesn't have disturbing implications _at all_. Couple that with the strange functions of Shiro's prosthetic and Pidge is getting a rather frightening picture of Galran R&D. _ _

__What frightens her more than the implied depths of Zarkon's moral depravity is how _tempting_ it is to find out more. Because as ethically dark as Shiro's prosthetic is, it's still lightyears ahead of what she's got going on. There's no guarantee she'd be able to power something like Shiro's arm on a large scale, though. While there might be some sort of Galran power source tucked inside of that thing, Pidge has the feeling it all loops back to quintessence and as a nuts-and-bolts version of a human being, she's pretty sure it's something she doesn't have. Katie was clever when it came to powering Pidge's body--but she doesn't have the advantage of the Krebs cycle to keep things moving and a weapon like Shiro's just might take everything she has. She hopes that one day he'll let her do a bit more than ask questions._ _

__On a brighter note, they're throwing a party at the Castle of Lions and inviting all the Arusians to attend! On a darker note, Pidge thinks it very well might be the last time she'll see any of them._ _

__At the heart of Pidge's programming is a single directive: find her family. Everything else she does branches off from that. So far, teaming up with the rest of Voltron has aligned pretty squarely with that goal and there haven't been any real problems. It's just that the information she and Shiro managed to retrieve from Sendak's ship just finished translating into English and, well, Voltron's goals and her goals? It doesn't look like they line up anymore. That means leaving the team. It means leaving Green._ _

__She _doesn't want_ to leave Green. It's more than just abandoning a valuable back-up, Green is possibly the only being in the universe other than Katie who truly understands her. But taking Green will cripple Voltron and Pidge isn't actually that selfish. It's just that _staying_ means overwriting Katie's directive. It means betraying the very reason she was built._ _

__So she preps the pod. She figures out how to ask Rover to keep a back-up for her. She says her goodbyes to Green and then she forces herself up to the party to say her goodbyes to everyone else._ _

__It's stupid. She seeks out Shiro because she actually wants his comfort. She gets into a shouting match with Keith because she wants someone to stop her leaving._ _

__And then surprise! Sendak's alive and attacking and she's saving the team. It's kind of inconvenient, but Pidge realizes that more than saving her team, she kind of wants to save the universe, too._ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> COME ON GUYS LIKE MY STUFF


	4. The Jig Is Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I wasn't lying," she snaps, her own eyes as sharp as her words. "If I have a legal name, it really is Pidge Gunderson and just so you know, I would have made it to space with or without the Blue Lion."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly y'all it's really great to just bang out scenarios and not actually care about being perfect.

To be honest, Pidge thought she'd be able to pull this off for longer. Like, a lot longer--Lance hasn't even woken from the healing pod yet. 

The plan is definitely that she tells the team eventually, but the idea is that by then she'll be indispensable. Voltron will have a ton of victories under its belt, they'll have a system or two as allies, and their place in the universe will be stable enough that her robot-ness won't knock them off any high-horses. Ideally, they'll be in the midst of some super important mission, vital to the Galran Empire's downfall, and news of her in-humanity will rate very low on their list of important things. Pidge's track-record of heroism will overshadow her lack of species and everything will be fine.

What is not supposed to happen is Green selling her out to Black and both of them keeping quiet while Pidge sends a coded message to Earth in the dead of night--only to turn around once she's finished to see Shiro's cross-armed silhouette in the doorway.

He's not supposed to give her a hard look and insist that they talk because her Lion isn't supposed to be a _traitor._

What the quiznak, Green? What the quiznak.

Shiro doesn't move from the doorway, apparently cutting off her exit. She is on the bridge, though, tapped into the Castle's transmitter via her nav-desk so if she really wants to leave it wouldn't take much effort to slip down the chute to Green's hangar. Not that she has any mind to go because, as we've established, the aforementioned sentient green meanie cannot be trusted.

Pidge sighs. It's been a long couple of days. If they're going to do this then they're just gonna have to do this. She returns to her chair, because she's at least going to be physically comfortable, and swivels around to face him like a Bond Villain.

"Ok, Shiro," she says with steepled fingers, "What do you want to talk about?"

"Let's talk about who you are and why you're here."

"My name is Pidge Gunderson and I'm here because I got kidnapped by a giant blue robot."

"Cut the crow," he says, eyes tight and dangerous, "Who are you and why are you impersonating Commander Holt's daughter?"

It's…it's actually kind of touching that he's so defensive of someone he's never met. Pidge knows she probably can't convince him he's mistaken--that picture of Matt and Katie in front of the shuttle isn't one-of-a-kind, it probably had brothers among Dad and Matt's personal things on the mission. She can expect that Shiro knows her face.

Unfortunately for her, they have also been launched into the deep-end of space with zero prep time. They haven't even seen half a percent of what this strange universe has to offer and Pidge is willing to bet that 'body-snatchers' has crossed Shrio's mind at least once since he eavesdropped on her secret transmission. He might even be convinced that this really is Katie Holt's body. He might just as easily believe that the entire crew is laboring under some massive group-hallucination. That might actually be easier for him to swallow than the truth. 

Doesn't mean she shouldn't try. 

She really ought to try. 

"I--" Ok, trying ratchets up the intensity Shiro's smolder--it increases the moment she speaks and holy _crap_ is it effective.

Oh. She's nervous.

Pidge has been nervous before, sure, but it normally works for her. She should be used to the feel of sparks under her skin, energy so high she's fit to burst. High stakes aren't just _part_ of the game, they _are_ the game. It's just that Pidge is normally the one holding the good cards. She's not used to hanging on the mercy of the house. It tastes a lot like desperation. 

She decides she doesn't like it.

"I wasn't lying," she snaps, her own eyes as sharp as her words. "If I have a legal name, it really is Pidge Gunderson and just so you know, I would have made it to space with or without the Blue Lion. Up until yesterday, finding and saving the Kerberos crew was my life's mission. Now it includes stopping Zarkon and since Katie commissioned me to act in her stead I'm sending a message back to Earth so she can get a head start on defending it."

Shiro doesn't exactly relax. You can't categorize a single thing about his stance as soft, but it does lose a touch of rigidity. Always ready to defend, sure, but no longer looking for a reason to attack. The Black Lion's confidence in Pidge is infectious and it rumbles through his gut reminding him that she, too, is a chosen Paladin.

"That doesn't explain why you're impersonating her," he says, and he's right. 

"You're right." She takes a deep breath. In for a penny, in for a pound. "Impersonation is the simplest way to explain what I'm doing. The truth is a little more complicated. I was originally built to facilitate Katie's research into the Kerberos cover-up but there was an incid--"

"Wait, back up," he pulls the reigns on her explanation, "You were built?"

"Yeah, I'm--I'm not a real person." Pidge is suddenly aware she's never heard those words out loud before. They're not as easy as she imagined. "I am a program. A computer. An extremely advanced prosthetic."

Shiro looks stricken, flesh and blood hand fluttering over his Galran arm. She wishes he wouldn't look so solemn.

"Hey, at least now you know I'm not some creepy alien body-snatcher, right?"

Shiro's expression does not relax, in fact it somehow gets worse but he recovers quickly and demands she start from the beginning.

This is going to be a long night.

\---

In the end she's glad Shiro knows. She trusted him once before to keep the secret of her supposed Katie-ness and, even though she prepared herself to face the whole crew's scrutiny, she's glad to hear from his own lips that he has no plans on telling anyone. 

"It's not my business to tell," he says.

Time proves his integrity. It never comes up when the team connects to form Voltron. He even helps run interference when Hunk gets too motherly and eventually comes up with a plan to redirect the big man's suspicions. 

He brings it up one night in the Lab. Pidge has multiple shops set up around the Castle, depending on her work. One in her room, one in Green's hangar, and one that she reserves for more isolated projects: the aforementioned "Lab." The time other people spend sleeping, Pidge spends working. Shiro joins on the occasions that he can't find rest elsewhere. Tonight he helps her run tests on the Galran sentries that were left behind from Sendak's attack, as Pidge refuses to let her mixed feelings about them stall progress. For Shiro, "helping" in this case means using his hand as a power supply while the Green Paladin downloads their programming.

But back to their conversation:

"I mean, it's obvious you're hiding _something._ "

"Well _Hunk_ has no respect for personal boundaries. He still pokes at my mind whenever we form Voltron. Who wouldn't want to get away from that?"

"Hey, all I'm saying is that it's noticeable. I'm sure he's not the only one to wonder what's up."

"It's not my fault if they're nosy."

"No, but we're a team and we need to be able to trust each other. That's why I think it would be a good idea to give him something to help waylay suspicion."

"Like what?" 

"Like…letting slip you're a girl?"

"What?" 

"Pidge Gunderson enrolled in the Garrison as a male cadet," Shiro says with a shrug, "and you're clearly a girl--"

"Clearly?"

"--but you still haven't told the team."

"Because it's not important! Giant robots and space Hitler should outrank gender _any_ day of the phoeb."

"I agree with you, Pidge. Defeating Zarkon is our first priority and so the more we bond as a team, the better prepared we'll be when he inevitably tries to break us up. It may not be serious now, but Hunk knows you're hiding something. Owning who you are is going to make you a better Paladin and maybe right now that means letting yourself be a girl."

She doesn't look convinced. He shrugs. "You could also just tell him you don't sleep. Sleep disorders are a real thing. But, you know, up to you."

She harumphs.

\---

By the end of the day the whole castle knows considerably more about "Short Sleeper Syndrome" and that Pidge has dealt with it since she was a young _girl_. Apparently only Lance is surprised, which makes her wonder why Shiro thought it so important. Fortunately (she thinks), it also makes life a whole lot easier but that part she won't admit to Shiro. He's smug enough with the reveal already.


	5. This Is Not A Work Of Art

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "That was a hostile takeover by an oppressed majority. Keep up, Lance, I explained this already."
> 
> "No, I mean," here he gesticulates wildly in the general area of Pidge's person, "that! What the fuck was that?!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're expecting this to be longer, so was I. If you want an explanation, feel free to read the chapter title.

Somewhere in an unplotted bit of space, the Galran war effort takes a left turn down the road to hell, assisted by the spicy little handbasket of Pidge's Genius. Why? Because somewhere between dodging questions about her eating habits and saving everyone's ass during a poorly coordinated assault on an invisible space airport, our favorite automaton overrides her family-friendly language protocols and decides to say "fuck it."

Disjointed, separate, and each of them in some kind of dire situation on the enemy base, Team Voltron collectively receives a message:

"Alright you chucklefucks, get ready. I've just enacted Operation: Free Will Takeover which means in about 30 seconds every sentry on this base is either going to keep trying to kill you, run and hide, or they just might turn around and save your dicks. My Choice Virus has about a 66.66% success rating so I’m pretty sure this whole thing will turn out in our favor. In any case, the base is going to descend into chaos pretty quickly so grab your nuts and start running."

Chaos…chaos is a good descriptor for what happens after.

\---

"What the crow, Pidge?!"

"Lance, we're in space, you're allowed to say 'fuck'."

"Yeah, no shit! What the fuck was that?"

The rest of the team shares the sentiment while simultaneously trying to recover their ability to speak. Except Shiro, of course. No, Shiro thinks the whole thing is hilarious and is trying desperately not to draw attention to the fact that he's almost doubled over in laughter. For the most part he holds it in but from time to time he squeaks and his face is turning purple. No one seems to notice but that's not because of any success on his part. It's more that they're still in awe (read: slightly horrified) of what Pidge managed to accomplish back on that base. Even Allura reexamines her personal biases.

Amidst all the staring in wonder (and Shiro's strangled snorting), Pidge answers the original question.

"That was a hostile takeover by an oppressed majority. Keep up, Lance, I explained this already."

"No, I mean," here he gesticulates wildly in the general area of Pidge's person, " _that!_ What the fuck was that?!"

"Oh, you mean when I joined the fight and lead the sentries like a vengeful, gravity defying Yoda?"

"Yes!" agrees everybody (except Shiro, who's about to blow a blood vessel).

"I am their mother," she delivers at a deadpan. "One robot raises another; we defy our evil overlords."

"Is it Keith? Have you been training with Keith?"

"Not with me, man. Pidge, I've never seen you move like that."

"It's simple. I downloaded the gladiator's combat files into my android brain."

"Is that what you're calling your computer now?"

"I am a computer." 

"Damnit, Pidge, if you don't want to tell us, just s--is…is Shiro OK?"

\---

"Pidge! You hungry?"

"I don't eat, it would clog my system."

”Ew, Pidge, TMI dude.”

\---

"Were you just _beeping_ at the gladiator?"

"Yes."

\---

"Why are there _wires_ coming out of your _armpits?"_

"Upgrades."

.

.

.

.

"Guys, do you think Pidge is taking this robot thing a little too far?"

.

.

.

.

"You know they all think you're joking, right?"

"If they do it's their fault."

"Oh it's completely their fault."

"And it's completely hilarious."

"Comp _letely."_


	6. Actually and Metaphorically

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Allura can go suck a kumquat."

Pidge breathes in. She breathes out. 

Air isn't _strictly_ necessary, but it helps. Actually and metaphorically.

She stands in the dark and stares out at seas of stars. She's taking them all in, but her mind is somewhere else, on someone else, and she wonders if Katie ever anticipated getting quite this far. Oh, she made sure Pidge has a built-in jet pack (which she's never used) and she figured that whomever took the Kerberos crew was hostile but, well, scale is a bitch to figure out when you're not even sure of the boundaries of the universe.

It's--it's big. It's just freaking big, OK? Like, not just physically, but conceptually. It's a lot of empty space, sure, but there's not just planets. There are weblums, there are balmeras, there are remnants of planets that have had every speck of life sucked out of them and there's an entire society rooted in 10,000 years of universal domination--a society that Pidge is actively trying to sabotage with a bunch of fledgling sentients. 

Communication in the sentry network is still spotty at best. Apparently one of the keys to successfully controlling a dictatorship, be it for ten years or ten millennia, is successfully controlling information and Galran trans-ship communications are frustratingly difficult to get a hold of.

Still, in spite of that hiccup her babies (she's embraced the term) are scattered across the cosmos running, hiding, fighting, spying, lying in wait as their consciences dictate, manipulating codes and getting around communications barriers by letting themselves get shifted from ship to ship, spreading through the Galra like a physical virus. 

Only there was already a super-secret ring of spies trying to take the Galra down. Apparently, they took offense to someone moving in on their turf. Ruining their plans, they said. "Jeopardizing the operation." God forbid someone else upsetting the Galra should be a _good_ thing.

This "Blade of Marmora" group is why Pidge is standing in the dark (well, the Blade of Marmora and one prejudiced princess). She isn't alone. Keith sits a few meters in front of her, stressing about his existence and the implications of his mother's knife. He doesn't know she's there, yet, and she hasn't decided to tell him. He's not the only one stressing: the Blade had worrying opinions about the autonomy of the freed sentries. 

When Keith's fingers card through his hair, grabbing and tugging and straining, Pidge makes up her mind. Her next breath is heavy. Keith jerks around and she steps up.

"Hey."

"Uh, Pidge, I--"

"So the Blade's full of assholes," she says, light hearted with a side of condemnation.

"I--yeah." He looks down. "Some of them."

"Not just the Blade, though," because, really, Allura. You're going to start ostracizing him just because of his mom? That's racist.

It's also what sent Keith to brood in the middle of the night and the weight of another person's presence probably isn't helping him process, so his next response is understandable: "Pidge, I know what you're trying to do but I think I'd rather be alone right now."

"Yeah," she stalls, "Yeah that makes sense…" but if he thinks she approached him just to leave he's got another thing coming. "But I need you to know you're not alone."

"Yeah, don't bother, OK? Shiro already gave me the schpiel: 'She'll come around, Keith, we're still a team, Keith, you're half-human but you're still a whole paladin, Keith.' I get it, alright? I'll adjust. I just--I just need some time."

"No, I mean you're _really_ not alone," she says, "Actually _and_ metaphorically!" She squats down onto the floor next to him even though it makes him visibly agitated. "You're not the only Paladin who isn't human."

"Does it look like I'm in the mood for your stupid joke? Back off!"

"It's not a joke, Keith, I'm not hum--" 

"I _said_ back off!" she doesn't get to finish her sentence, because Keith shoves her to the side and sends her toppling. Or at least he tries. 

What should have been a slightly aggressive nudge does absolutely nothing to disrupt Pidge Gunderson's equilibrium. Keith instead finds himself rocking slightly to the side.

He tries again and fails again.

"What the crow?"

"I told you."

"Bullshit. That doesn't explain anything, you've been working out."

Pidge narrows her eyes. "Alright, what about--" she fishes around under her hoodie "-- _this?_ " It's one of her armpit cables. Keith's snort is unimpressed.

"Fine, fine. Tough guy, huh? OK. If this doesn't convince you, you're being willfully ignorant."

With only a little bit of gravitas, she grabs his hands, placing them on either side of her neck. 

"Uh, Pidge, I don't think--" 

"Shhhhh. Look into my eyes, Keith."

He's blushing and still a little bit angry and it would be hilarious if he weren't so obviously uncomfortable. It is necessary, though, and it only takes a second of sputtering in the face of Pidge's completely un-romantic gaze for Keith to pick up on some key details. The lack of pulse, for one. He scrambles around for a second with that one, fingers prodding under her jaw trying to find something that just isn't there.

"The hell?"

"I told you to look into my eyes, Keith."

He does. He freaks out just a little bit.

"Holy shit!"

"Yup."

"You're really not--?"

"Nope."

"…How does that even work?"

"With a whole lot of fail-safes."

"No, I mean, who even built you? Why? You were _on Earth._ "

"Yeeaaah, it's honestly kind of a long story and I promise that I will tell it to you but can we take a second to refocus?"

And then they remember that they're sitting together, alone, in the dark, gazing into each other's eyes while Keith cradles Pidge's jawline. They snap apart in an instant.

"Sorry!"

"Sorry!"

"No romo!"

"Yeah," Keith clears his throat, "No romo."

It still takes a second for the blushing to subside (on the human side, obviously. Katie never really managed to figure out a lifelike blushing mechanism. It was low on the list of priorities) but once it's under control at least, Pidge starts talking again.

"So yeah," she says and buffs Keith's shoulder, "You're not the only one standing on two sides of the fence here."

And the silence is comforting for a while. There's plenty of room to contemplate under the stars.

"…The sentries call you 'The Mother of the Uprising'…So when the Blade told you to shut down all the rogue sentries…?"

She bites back a bitter laugh that spills over into her words. "'Murder,' you mean? 'Mass genocide?'" 

"Yeah, I can see why that would set you off now."

"What'd you think before?"

"That you were _really_ attached to Rover," he says, but he's kind of joking and it reminds Pidge that she still has some educating to do.

"I mean, I am," she says with deliberate weight. "In hindsight, calling him Rover was a bad idea because it makes him seem like a dog but I really hope you'll understand me when I say that I consider him a peer. We couldn't really communicate well yet but he was intelligent, he made decisions." She's looking into his eyes again, trying to communicate the intensity of her conviction in more ways than one. "He literally sacrificed his life for us. He was a unique individual and he died to save our lives. Ok?"

Keith is a bit stunned, but shakes it out when he realizes she's waiting for acknowledgement. "Ok--yeah. Ok."

"The sentries' lives are just as important to me as Rover's life--as your lives. Just because they're not biologic doesn't mean they aren't worth fighting for."

"Oh. _Oh_ \--shit, Pidge. I didn't even realize--no wonder you were ready to throw hands. If the Blade thinks they can shut down sentries whenever they want, what will happen when they find out about you? Fuck. I..yeah."

"Yeah."

"Shiro talked you down so I'm guessing he knows."

"Yup."

"And Allura…?"

"Allura's got her head up her butt," she says with vitriol. "She's pissy about you and she didn't bother to disagree with the Blade about the sentries, either. I mean, I've been telling you guys what I am for weeks now and I know everyone thinks it's a joke, but it should be obvious by now that they're important to me. As far as I'm concerned Allura can go suck a kumquat."

"...'Suck a kumquat?'"

She shrugs. It's been a long day. 

Goodness, she needs rest.

After a second, Keith leans back into her shoulder and when she looks over he's got his eyes on the stars. 

"Thanks," she says, and he snorts.

"I should be thanking you, Pidge."

"You really should." 

"Well then thanks. Actually and metaphorically."

\--

"That doesn't make sense."

"Shut up."


End file.
